NATURE 



;i 



.1 HISTORY OF THE EARTH. 

 Ceschiclitc der Erde iind des Lebens. B}" J. Walthcr 

 Pp. iv + 570; with 353 illustrations. (Leipzig: Von 

 Wit and Co., 1908.) Price 14 marks. 



PROF. W.VLTHER'S history of the earth and of 

 life has been written with that combined know- 

 ledge of physical geography, stratigraphy, astronomy, 

 and biology which we have learnt to expect from the 

 author's previous writings. He tells the story of the 

 earth in a series of chapters which have the interest 

 of essays instead of the compressed information of 

 a te.xt-book, and are rich in fresh observations made 

 by the author or culled from recent technical litera- 

 ture. The volume is remarkably well illustrated. 

 One feature of the illustrations is the abundance of 

 drawings showing extinct animals reproduced as in 

 life. There are also numerous pictures of ideal land- 

 scapes and seascapes, drawn in accordance with most 

 recent knowledge. Such, for example, is the terri- 

 fying picture of Coccosteus decipiens, by Rudloff, after 

 a reproduction by Jaeckel, the beauty competition 

 between Rhamphorhynchus and Archaeopteryx on the 

 shores of the Solenhofen lagoon, and the race between 

 two flying Pteranodons, which, as they had a body 

 weighing only 15 kilograms to a wing span of 18 feet, 

 resemble a modern aeroplane with its small motor 

 and vast sails. The views include pictures of life 

 on the sea floor in two epochs of the Cambrian 

 period, and one of a Calamite forest in the Carbon- 

 iferous, by Rudloff, from designs by Walther. The 

 illustration of Dinornis is, however, somewhat out of 

 date, as the bird's title to its specific name of 

 maximus is due more to the artist than to nature. 



The book begins with a series of chapters on the 

 physics of the earth, which the author describes as 

 composed of five zones. For the central mass he 

 adopts the name of pyrosphere, and to the zones 

 usually accepted he adds the biosphere, which he 

 separates from the underlying lithosphere, owing to 

 the wide area occupied bj- coral limestones and forests. 

 The author then discusses the relations of the earth to 

 other heavenly bodies, and he enters a welcome and 

 emphatic protest against the continuance of describ- 

 ing the ring-shaped mountains of the moon as 

 volcanoes. He, however, accepts Dr. G. K. Gilbert's 

 theory that they are due to meteoric masses which 

 were fused by collision with the moon and spread 

 out as a ring around the point of impact. 



We also welcome his view, which he repeats from 

 his paper of 1903, that the development of the deep 

 oceanic basins began at the close of Palaeozoic 

 times, so that the modern abyssal oozes are not to 

 be expected in the Palaeozoic rocks. The book in- 

 cludes a map showing the supposed wanderings of 

 the North Pole, and discusses the shifting of the pole 

 as the possible cause of climatic changes; the fact 

 is admitted, however, that this movement of the pole 

 has not been proved for any geological period. 



The author also refers to various attempts to 

 NO. 2037, \"OL. 79] 



express geological time in vears, and in this matter 

 does not seem very hopeful of satisfactory results. 

 He quotes estimates of the age of the earth, from 

 the 20 million years of Lord Kelvin to the 100 to 

 iSo million estimate of Sir .Archibald Geikie. He 

 caricatures one line of argument by remarking that 

 because one man can build a wall in 100 hours, it 

 does not follow that 360,000 builders could build the 

 same wall in one second. He gives a photograph of 

 a lump of coral 8 centimetres high, which had grown 

 in four years on a telegraph cable, and he argues 

 therefrom that a layer of coral limestone 600 metres 

 thick could have been deposited in 30,000 years, an 

 unconvincing argument, owing to the difference in 

 texture between a branching coral and a massive coral 

 rock. 



The section of the work devoted to stratigraphical 

 geology the author calls " Bathrologie," which de- 

 scribes each geological system in reference to its 

 most striking geographical character, such as the 

 great northland of the Old Red Sandstone, the Pro- 

 ductus Sea of the Carboniferous, the continent of 

 Gondwanaland, the Triassic Sea and its struggle 

 with the northern deserts, the Jurassic Sea, &c. 



In his geological classification the author adopts 

 one view which will probably not meet with general 

 acceptance, for he groups together the Algonkian 

 and the Cambrian as one group, the Urzeit ; the 

 systems from the Silurian to the Permian inclusive he 

 calls the Alt-zeit. Considering the great uncon- 

 formity and complete palaeontological difference be- 

 tween the Algonkian and the Cambrian, and the 

 uncertainty as to the dividing-line between the Cam- 

 brian and the Ordovician, the separation of the Cam- 

 brian from the rest of the Palaeozoic is unnecessary. 



In his interesting chapter on prehistoric rnan the 

 author figures some eoliths from the IMiocene; he 

 regards these stones as showing artificial workman- 

 ship, and remarks that they have not been found 

 associated with broken bones or any other signs of 

 the contemporary existence of man. The author is 

 probably only logical in his conclusion that, if the 

 eoliths are of human origin, then the age of man 

 must be extended back at least to the Miocene, and 

 probably to even much earlier geological periods. 



One mistake may be noted, as it has occurred in 

 other text-books. On p. 132 it is stated that the 

 Pink and White Terraces of New Zealand were de- 

 stroyed by an earthquake, whereas they were blown 

 to fragments by a volcanic explosion that left a vast 

 crater deep below their site. J. W. G. 



SCIENCE AND THE DAILY PRESS. 

 From an Easv Chair. By Sir E. Ray Lankester, 

 K.C.B., F.R.S. Pp. viii+144. (London: A. Con- 

 stable and Co., Ltd., 1908.) Price 15. net. 

 SCIENCE renders the people a three-fold service. 

 The increase in material comfort and in facility 

 of communication which have resulted from ability 

 to direct the forces of nature have been sufficiently 

 proclaimed by public speakers and acclaimed by their 

 hearers. It is less clear that the public recognise the 



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